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Municipalities in Norway are the basic unit of local government. Norway is divided into 15 administrative regions, called counties. These counties are subdivided into 357 municipalities (as of 2024). The capital city Oslo is both a county and a municipality.
Municipalities are responsible for primary education (through 10th grade), outpatient health services, senior citizen services, welfare and other social services, zoning, economic development, and municipal roads and utilities. The municipality is governed by a municipal council of directly elected representatives. The mayor is indirectly elected by a vote of the municipal council.[1] Law enforcement and church services are provided at a national level in Norway.
Municipalities are undergoing continuous change by dividing, consolidating, and adjusting boundaries. In 1930, there were 747 municipalities in Norway. As of 2024, there are 357 municipalities. See the list of former municipalities of Norway for further details about municipal mergers.
The consolidation effort has been underway since the work of the Schei Committee in the 1960s. This work has been complicated by a number of factors. Since block grants are made by the national government to the municipalities based on an assessment of need, there is little incentive for the municipalities to lose local autonomy. The national policy is that municipalities should only merge voluntarily, and studies are underway to identify potential gains.
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There are two different writing standards in Norway: Bokmål and Nynorsk. Norwegian municipalities are named kommuner (Bokmål) or kommunar (Nynorsk) (plural) or kommune (the singular form is the same in both Bokmål and Nynorsk). The Norwegian word kommune is loaned from the French word commune, which ultimately derives from Latin word communia, communis ("common").[2] The Kven equivalent is kommuuni.[3] Historically, the word herred (Bokmål) or herad (Nynorsk) was used in Norway as the name for municipalities. That word derived from the old hundred that was used all over northern Europe. Since the 1960s, that name has fallen out of use across Norway, although a small group of municipalities in the Hardanger region of Western Norway still use the name herad such as Voss herad, Ulvik herad, and Kvam herad. Ullensvang Municipality used the name herad until 2020.[4]
Norway also has some municipalities that are bilingual or trilingual due to the presence of many native Sami people living there. In Northern Sámi, there are two words for a municipality: suohkan and gielda.[5] Both are loan words from Scandinavian languages, the first of which is related to the Norwegian words sokn and sogn (a parish).[6] The second term is related to the Norwegian word gjeld (prestegjeld).[7] Lule Sámi likewise has two words for municipalities: suohkan and giellda.[8] The Southern Sámi word is tjïelte.[9]
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Each municipality has its own governmental leaders: the mayor (ordfører (Bokmål) or ordførar (Nynorsk)) and the municipal council (kommunestyre). The mayor is the executive leader. The municipal council is the deliberative and legislative body of the municipality and it is the highest governing body in the municipality. The members of the municipal council are elected for a four-year term. A subdivision of the full council is the executive council (formannskap), composed of five members. Historically, the council has been known as a herredstrye, using the old name for a municipality.[1]
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